PERSON: Sam Bankman-Fried

CEO & Founder

Samuel Benjamin Bankman-Fried (born March 5, 1992), commonly known as SBF, is an American entrepreneur who was convicted of fraud and related crimes in November 2023. Bankman-Fried founded the FTX cryptocurrency exchange and was celebrated as a “poster boy” for crypto, with FTX having a global reach with more than 130 international affiliates. At the peak of his net worth, he was ranked the 41st-richest American in the Forbes 400.

The friendly “math nerd” persona of Bankman-Fried masked significant problems at FTX, and in November 2022, as evidence of potential fraud began to surface, depositors quickly withdrew their assets, forcing the company into bankruptcy. On December 12, 2022, Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas and extradited to the United States, where he was indicted on seven criminal charges, including wire fraud, commodities fraud, securities fraud, money laundering, and campaign finance law violations.

In the case of United States v. Bankman-Fried, he was convicted of all seven counts of fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering. On March 28, 2024, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison and ordered to forfeit $11 billion. The trial was one of the most notorious cases of white-collar crime in the United States, with financier Anthony Scaramucci calling Bankman-Fried “the Bernie Madoff of crypto”.

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